I’d like to share an early Christmas present with all of you. I’ve been working at a themed index to the Time to Shine learning for some time, and here it is.

I hope it will help everyone working with older people during the difficult winter ahead of us, especially those of you who were not directly involved in one of the many Time to Shine projects who might not have had access to the learning over the years of the programme.

There’s a range of topics covered, many of them very clearly focussed on face-to-face delivery. For the many small groups popping up at the moment there is a toolkit to help you implement parts of the Warm Welcome system (researched by Ageing Better in Camden), that includes reminder cards, checklists and even signs and arrows for any community building, which might help groups to make their Warm Spaces into welcoming places for new members.

For the bigger organisations out there the academic evaluation, and the papers on monitoring, evaluation and using a programme approach might help you, as they have helped us at LOPF. This learning and the co-production approach has helped LOPF to take on work across Leeds, running programmes with third sector partners to deliver Enhance with the Leeds Community Healthcare Trust (NHS) and Travel Connections with the Department for Transport.

I’ve been out and about a bit lately, and met a number of people who have joined a third sector organisation in Leeds recently. To all of you, welcome, and do spend some time looking through our learning.  The Time to Shine programme was part of a much larger National Lottery Community Fund programme called Ageing Better – with 14 organisations across England working on the best ways to reduce loneliness and social isolation in older people. Some of our learning is very specific to working with older people, especially frail older people – but much of it also applies to anyone who might be feeling isolated. Do take some time to have a look at our learning, and the learning of the rest of the programme.

I’m here until March, and I’m available to share our learning. Look out for a programme of online learning and peer support in the New Year – or just email me – jessica @opforum.org.uk – to find out more.

I’m very happy to talk to people across Yorkshire or indeed across the UK.

Jessica Duffy
Good Practice Mentor